Our experience on 'Avatar' heavily influenced how we approached 'The Dragon Prince' and how we built our team.
Aaron Ehasz
Yeah, so when 'Avatar' came out, the social media world and the idea of fan communities were very new. There were forums and you could obviously go to conventions and talk to people, but it wasn't as clear or easy.
On 'Avatar', I learned that it's worth taking some risks and doing some weird little things with characters or having an off-joke here and there, even if it's only for 5 percent of the audience.
In the James Cameron blockbuster 'Avatar,' 3-D cinematography is the real star. The bugs and crawling creatures seem to slither into the theater seats. The floating mountains of the planet Pandora hover gloriously overhead. And the Na'Vi, Pandora's 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned natives, come convincingly to life.
Adam Cohen
The remarkable thing about 'Avatar' is the degree to which the technology is integral to the story. It is important to show Pandora and its Na'Vi natives in 3-D because 'Avatar' is fundamentally about the moral necessity of seeing other beings fully.
I see myself as an avatar of curiosity and doubt.
Adam Conover
If you look at 'Avatar,' could you imagine if you did 'Avatar' for 50 million dollars? It would be ridiculous! You would almost be getting laughs from the audience, unless you got a real indie director to do something incredibly stylised.
Adam McKay
I would love to direct an 'Apes' movie. It would be in the spirit of where I'm going with my career - avatars played by actors to say something about the human condition.
Andy Serkis
Critics have called alien epic 'Avatar' a version of 'Dances With Wolves' because it's about a white guy going native and becoming a great leader. But Avatar is just the latest scifi rehash of an old white guilt fantasy.
Annalee Newitz
Whether 'Avatar' is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick 'District 9', released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race.
'Avatar' imaginatively revisits the crime scene of white America's foundational act of genocide, in which entire native tribes and civilizations were wiped out by European immigrants to the American continent.
I saw 'Avatar' and liked it very much. It was a great achievement.
Bernardo Bertolucci
Seeing other people is incredibly engaging, and that's one of the drivers that made us partner with Facebook - social communication. Not social newsfeeds, but actual face-to-face, seeing multiple avatars in a play experience, that's going to be a very big part of the future in VR.
Brendan Iribe
Mike and I were really interested in other epic 'Legends & Lore' properties, like 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings,' but we knew that we wanted to take a different approach to that type of genre. Our love for Japanese Anime, Hong Kong action & Kung Fu cinema, yoga, and Eastern philosophies led us to the initial inspiration for 'Avatar.'
Bryan Konietzko
It wouldn't be the Avatarverse without some hairstyle changes, now would it?
When Nickelodeon, in 2009, told us they wanted us to come back and do another series where we could do whatever we wanted, the first thought we had was: Let's do a story about the next 'Avatar.' That was the first thought. The second thought was: Let's make it a girl.
Nickelodeon came to us at the end of 2009 with a twelve episode 'mini-season' already green-lit for a new series. They let us do pretty much whatever we wanted with it, as long as it was in the 'Avatar' universe and featured bending.
When you have a fully-realized Avatar, it's like Superman, and how do you make that interesting?
After 'Avatar' ended, I spent a lot of time watching MMA and kickboxing fights on UFC, WEC, DREAM, and K-1.
From the inception of this series, Mike and I were very interested in exploring the theme of tradition versus progress. We always like the struggle for balance to be a central theme of our stories, so as we introduce all of these changes to the 'Avatar' world, we get to see how people react and try to realign themselves.
I'm just making 'Threadworlds' out of the things I love and that I'm passionate about learning. When we created 'Avatar,' Michael DiMartino and I did the same thing.
Though we did have a few main characters in 'Avatar' who represented the non-benders of the world, most of the people we focused on were benders. However, benders are the minority in their world population.
We're definitely still interested in the Avatar/Korra universe and fantastical world building in general, but I think many of the core themes and tones found in our two kids' series would be present as well in any sort of adult dramas we might be lucky enough to make in the future.
Mike and I figured out a lot about the world, characters and story in the initial two weeks between creating 'Avatar' and pitching it to Nickelodeon.
There is such a flood of TV shows, movies, video games, comics, and books, but somehow 'Avatar' is still being discovered by each new generation.
While we were in the middle of 'Avatar' we got a lot of volatile reaction from fans. They were very upset with the direction we were taking Zuko.
I think Mike and I would absolutely love to do feature animation. Either another story, or it if worked out, one in the 'Avatar' world. We would be really excited.
Early on, many years ago when we started 'Avatar,' the executive that we were working with said to make the sad scenes sadder, the funny scenes funnier, the scary scenes scarier. That was kind of permission to do what we felt comfortable with.
We're always striving to make Avatar look like a cinematic, live-action movie.
'Avatar' means so many things to so many different people. When I think of the creation of it, I think of me and Mike at the computer in a little apartment in Burbank.
You don't pay the same price for a Ferrari as you do for a Honda Accord. But for some reason, for movie tickets, you're asked to pay the same price for 'Avatar' as you are for some $2 million movie, which is kind of a weird thing when you think about it.
According to the people who dearly would love to throw him out of office, Barack Obama was elected to be 'above politics.' He wasn't elected to be president, after all. He was elected as an avatar of American tolerance. His attempts to get himself reelected imply a certain, well, ingratitude.
Look at 'Avatar:' the foreign ticket sales were over twice the domestic returns. The mind boggles at those kinds of numbers, but that's what you get when you effectively reach out to a global audience. If that kind of thing came to comics, it would undoubtedly change how people perceive the mainstream industry.
I hated 'Avatar' from the jump. And I like James Cameron. I'm not opposed to James Cameron.
I don't know a single person that's like, ''Avatar' is my favorite movie.' It never even comes up. I don't know anyone that will defend that movie.
Apparently, Agent Coulson is a representative or an avatar of all the geeks. And there is so much love for Coulson and fan art of Coulson.
We ended up realizing that's not an economical way to create creatures, putting people in green leotards and figuring it out later. You can maybe do that if you're making 'Avatar,' but we need to know what the creatures look like before we turn on the camera.
I think it's one of the coolest things especially as a young actor, actually at any time - even doing my stuff with Avatar - merchandising, video games come out and action figures and plushie toys. It really ignites the kid in you.
I love being part of the 'Avatar' family.
We live in an age where there is a firehose of information, and there is no hierarchy of what is important and what is not. Where the truth is often fashioned through a variety of digital means. Are you your avatar? Who are you in social media? What face do you turn toward the world? How much does it have in common with who you actually are?
How mad would it actually be to do an 'Avatar' type animation film, but about something mundane like a Winn-Dixie cashier's day at work? That'd be something else, I think.
I think 'Avatar' is much more appropriate to high frame rates because it's like a ride, and it's futuristic, and vividness and sharp edges and clarity would be an asset.
In America, everyone writes but no one reads. Everyone's writing all day long - sending emails, tweets, text messages; they all think they're James Cameron's Avatar, performing in some video game for which they make up the script.
'Avatar: The Last Airbender' is, to my mind, the greatest American animated series ever produced. The characters lived and breathed.
'Avatar: The Last Airbender' creators Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have, along with their team, painstakingly planned out the Avatarverse.
Aang is an Airbender, and he became the Avatar after the last one died. He has to realize his destiny as the Avatar by mastering all of the elements - earth, fire and air. For me, I feel like I'm mastering all the different styles or elements of MMA. It's my destiny to become the Avatar of this game.
Aang hits the Avatar-state and he has this unlimited power. He enters into a flow state, you know, he's in the zone. That's how it feels for me sometimes when I'm fighting.
I want to be in 'Avatar'. I want somebody to hire me to be Superman, a Chinese Superman or Spider-Man.
You need virtual reality to understand high level science or high level math. It's very helpful to explain third and fourth dimensional things that people are constantly addressing in quantum physics. But, as soon as you're creating an avatar, and you can live and you can start to feel sensations on VR, that has gone too far.
I'm a cartoon junkie. Love 'Avatar: The Last Airbender.'
